


Addict

by Flyting



Series: Housewife Hux [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Adultery, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Development, Housewife Hux, Leia sassing Hux, M/M, Whole Foods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 09:32:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13051284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flyting/pseuds/Flyting
Summary: Hux contemplates adultery in a Whole Foods. Senator Organa's college-aged son can have that affect on people.(More of housewife Hux and pool boy Ben Solo.)





	Addict

Hux always feels like a prey animal at the grocery store.

He pauses in picking through a colorful display of starfruit and papayas so do a casual scan of the produce section. Somewhere in the back of his mind, David Attenborough is narrating.  
  
_The male uses his superior height to evade detection by the females of the species while foraging._

Adding a couple of mangoes to the hand basket at his elbow, he snorts quietly to himself.

It wasn’t that he was antisocial. He generally liked being around people, especially when he got to be in charge of group activities. But something happened to women his age who had moved to a rich suburb and produced the obligatory 2.5 children. It came with the territory, like one of those awful minivans with the televisions in them, or an affinity for kale smoothies. They all liked to corner him with effusively friendly offers; _come and play tennis Armitage, come to book club Armitage, lets go shopping Armitage and you can help me pick out a swim suit, you always have such good taste- come over for girls night we’re going to watch Magic Mike, Susan’s bringing the wine so it’s going to be crazy, and I’m making these cute little fat free chocolate rice balls I saw on pinterest!_

And all the while, Hux couldn’t escape the feeling that he was being hunted and bagged, preparing to be mounted for display- the rare and elusive gay best friend to complete the appearance of the picture-perfect life for some aging California housewife, who should have spent her husband’s alimony checks on a personality instead of yet another round of Botox.

That was better than the alternative, of course - that they genuinely saw him as one of them and were simply trying to welcome him into the fold. And that makes him feel cold in a way that has nothing to do with the chilly air in the produce section.

He suddenly wants to text Ben. Not for any reason, just to say hello. Ben was running errands with his mother today so he likely wouldn’t be able to reply at any length, but even just a little hi back would cheer Hux up, despite the fact that Ben couldn’t spell for shit and used emojis with a frequency that made Hux worry for the language skills of the younger generation.

But Hux isn’t a complete idiot. All the accounts are in his husband’s name, phones included. It would be far too easy for Devon to have those records pulled if he ever found out about Ben.

He completes his circuit of the grocery store, grabbing coconut milk and whole-grain cereal for himself, and grinding coffee for Devon. Multivitamins and that fancy pineapple juice they both liked. Devon’s flight was supposed to come in at 7:45 that night, so he supposes he’ll need to make something for a proper dinner, although after staring blankly at a wall of organic dried pasta for several minutes without seeing it, he finally just decides fuck it, they can order Chinese.

As he heads for the checkout, he pauses at a display of cheap pre-paid phones. The kind you activate by calling an 800-number and pay by the minute. He’s used them before, doing security.

He’s in line at the register, his mind half-blank, when the sound of his first name startles him out of his sulk.

“Hello, Armitage.”

“Senator Organa,” he says, turning. “How are you?”

“Good, mainly because I haven’t been a senator for three years. Unless there was an election no one told me about.”

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “There was, actually. Last week. You didn’t hear?”

“I must have missed it. Well, damn,” she says lightly, patting her low bun. “I guess I have to go get my hair done.”  
  
He smiles at the quip. Hux has always respected his neighbor for her sharp wit and brash attitude, even if they had found themselves frequently, vocally, at odds during her stint as head of the homeowner’s association. More than once, Hux had considered staging a coup. Strictly business, of course.

“How’s Devon?” Leia asks, as she reaches past him to begin unloading her hand-basket onto the conveyor belt. “I haven’t seen him around lately.”

Another reason he liked Leia Organa. She was the only woman in their neighborhood who had both earned her own money, and had never once patted him on the arm and giggled about what a ‘waste’ of a good man he was.

“In and out of Chicago supervising some corporate merger business. I haven’t been kept in the loop on the details,” he says, trying for uncaring and only barely missing.  
  
She huffs a laugh. “That sounds familiar. Don’t sound so unhappy.” Before Hux can protest, she adds, “It’s the secret of a long marriage, you know.”

“What, ignorance?” His voice sounds sour even to him.

“No. ...well, okay, that seems to work for some people, but not our type.”  
  
There is something flattering in being lumped as the same ‘type’ as a woman like Leia Organa, but he cannot quite encapsulate what. Still, it’s pleasing.

“I meant travel,” she continues easily as Hux moves up in line. “You know how it is. It’s much easier to miss some people than to live with them. Probably the only reason my marriage has survived as long as it has is because we’re only in the same state two months out of the year. We’ve learned how to leave right when the other one is getting irritating.”

“And when is that?”

“About ten minutes after he opens his mouth, in my case.” Her lips quirk, but there’s a fondness in her voice that belies the words.

“A whole ten minutes?”

“Used to be five. I’m getting soft on him.”  
  
Having gotten him to laugh, she gives a satisfied pat to Hux’s elbow, the one still holding the grocery basket. “There. There’s your motherly advice for the day.”

“Thank you, I’ll keep it in mind. It’s not often I get good advice, motherly or otherwise.”

It was certainly more than his stepmother had ever bothered, and Hux’s mother had been dead since he was a teenager.

The former Senator Organa almost certainly didn’t know that.

He moves up to the front of the line and waits with muted impatience, his card already in the pin reader and waiting for cashier authorization while the boy scans his things. Not that he has anywhere pressing to be, but it’s the principle of the thing.

“Mom-”

“There you are, I was starting to worry you’d gotten lost,” Leia says, turning.

“Uh… they only had the twenty-four packs, so I just got two. Is that okay?” Ben edges his way around the people who have lined up being Leia. He’s easily holding two large packs of bottled water stacked on top of each in his long arms. “Sorry, excuse me-” The plastic containers creak in his grip as he scoots past the people in line behind them.

“That’s fine, thank you baby.”

“Hello, Ben,” Hux says, looking at the chip machine and focusing on punching in his pin to keep the unseemly smile off his face.

The last time he’d seen Ben had been yesterday evening. Lying beside Hux’s pool had turned to skinny-dipping once the sun had gone down and his hands still remember the feel of Ben’s bare skin under the water, the delicious heat of his cock pressing eagerly up between Hux’s thighs. Kisses that tasted like chlorine. Stroking each other off under the water. The way Ben’s cock fit in his hand.  
  
They had fucked again; Hux whispering salacious things in Ben’s ear while being pounded into the mattress. The right needy tone, the right words- _please sweetheart I need you right there -_ wound Ben up like an expensive watch. Then all Hux had to do was hold on.  
  
Afterwards, they had laid there, fucked out and content while the sweat cooled on their bodies. Ben’s stomach was growling, so Hux made sandwiches and they went ahead and ate them on the bed, seeing as how the sheets would need to be changed anyway before Hux's husband came home.

When it got late, Hux hadn’t wanted to let him go. Had dragged him down on the couch as he tried to leave through the front door and blown him again, swallowing down both Ben’s cock and his needy little whimpers like he was starving for them.

“Oh, hey, uh- mister Hux.” From the sound of it, Ben’s doing his best not to smile too.  
  
And just like that, the tension that had knotted in Hux’s chest evaporates.  
  
He steps out of the way with his lone shopping bag, hovering at the end of the lane while Ben hefts up the water to be scanned, the muscles in his arms and back moving easily under the fabric of his black t-shirt. Leia had undoubtedly forced him into those clean, nice-fitting jeans and the knotted belt that Hux can just see peeking up under his shirt when Hux’s eyes are pulled down the sharp line of his body. When he lifts the water, Hux catches a flash of one angular hipbone where his jeans ride low even with the belt.

“Can I give you a hand, Ben?” he asks, his tone innocent. He waits until the tips of Ben’s ears flush pink before he adds, nodding, “With the water.”

“I’m- it’s good, I’ve got it,” Ben stammers, shifting the weight. Hux is reminded suddenly of those broad hands under his thighs, lifting him up, and-

Christ, he’s got to get a hold of himself. He’s in fucking public.

Ben casts shy, darting little glances at Hux out of the corner of his eye while Leia pays, whenever he thinks she can’t see him. In the watery sunlight through the front windows of the shop, his eyes are a warm honeyed brown that reminds Hux of good whiskey and guilty secrets.

“So, uh- grocery shopping?” Ben says.

“Just a few essentials. I’ve been preoccupied lately, haven’t gotten to the store as much as usual.”

“Yeah? That’s not like you.” They are both trying not to smile. “What are you so preoccupied with?”  
  
If they were alone, Hux would lean in close and say  _your cock_ just to watch the way Ben stammered and blushed. It’s all he wants to do. But they’re not alone, they’re in the middle of _fucking Whole Foods_ and Ben’s mother is five feet away, so he blurts out, “Work,” instead, and has enough time to feel stupid- this boy is actually making him stupid- before he can scramble to cover his own embarrassment.

“It’s very nice of you, helping your poor mother around like this.”

“I can’t tell if that’s a crack about my height or my age,” Leia interrupts, raising an eyebrow as she puts away her pocketbook.  
  
“I would never,” Hux insists, the picture of innocence, glad to have something to focus on besides how Ben is standing beside him and how Hux can feel the warmth of Ben’s bare arm through his own sleeve. “Insult your height or your age. What kind of man do you think I am?”

“The kind who gives a loud whiny speech calling me a ‘aesthetically bankrupt bleeding-heart hypocrite’ because I approved the Becketts satellite dish?”  
  
_Traitor_ , he glares when Ben snorts and then tries very hard to look innocent.

The former senator Organa breezes past him, Ben trailing in her wake.

He follows them outside, blinking in the afternoon sun.

“That was friendly professional rivalry, nothing more.”

“Professional rivalry implies you’re on the homeowners board. You’re not.”

Hux shuts his mouth, jaw working while he fumbles for a response-

“Aand I think that’s mom: one, Hux: zero,” Ben smirks as they approach Leia’s sensible black sedan in the parking lot.

“Oh it’s a lot more than one, honey,” Leia pats Ben on the arm.

“The thing’s still a damn eyesore,” he calls after them, with no real venom, when she climbs in the driver’s seat, leaving Ben to wrestle their groceries into the trunk. The engine starts with a smooth growl.

“And you’re still not on the board,” she calls back through the open window.

“You shut up,” Hux cuts to Ben, who had started to snicker.

“What? It’s funny.”

“My complete assassination by your mother isn’t funny.”

“Yeah it is.” He’s smiling, leaning one hip on the trunk of the car, and Hux has the worst urge to kiss it off the corner of his mouth. “You guys both like to argue so much. Ugh, that probably says something about me.” He pulls a face.

“I don’t like to argue.”

“See? That’s- you’re doing it right now.”

“...Am not,” Hux says, just to make him duck his chin and laugh, and Hux has to look away, sun-blinded by Ben’s smile. He swallows. “Come over later,” he murmurs, glancing to see if Leia is paying any attention to them, comforted that they are mostly blocked by the open trunk of the car.

It was only twelve-thirty. Devon’s flight wouldn’t be in until nearly eight. They had time.  
  
He’s never been an addict. His father drank, his mother smoked, but nothing has ever stuck to him that way. Not until now. The lack of something has never made him desperate, not unless it was recognition and even that was more out of spite than desire. A desperate clinging need to say you’re wrong. But every time he tells himself it’s going to his last with Ben, something in him scrabbles, frantic to eke out just a little more.  
  
Ben swallows. “I can’t.” His eyes are on Hux’s neck, his shoulders. He sighs, a loud frustrated rush of air, “My parents are- they have shit for me to do all day. I have to clean out the stupid garage.”

Something uncomfortably like disappointment blossoms in Hux’s chest. He hates it even more because every inch of him knows that what he’s asking is foolish. What right does he have to demand this of Ben? “That’s alright. Have fun.”  
  
However, because he is spiteful in his disappointment, he pitches his voice to a low murmur and adds, “I suppose I’ll just be home all by myself, thinking about you.”

The barb hits home. Ben bits his lip, clearly picturing Hux panting into the pillow as he fucks himself with his largest toy, Ben’s name on his lips.

He wavers. “Hux...”

The car horn honks and they both jump, suddenly aware that they’re lingering.  
  
“I gotta go,” Ben, unhappiness in every word, and it’s almost enough to take the sting off of Hux’s disappointment. He shuts the trunk.

Hidden by the bulk of the car, Ben runs his hand- just the backs of two fingers, over Hux’s arm. The touch is like sunlight, soft and a little warm on his skin. They trail down his arm and Ben tangles their fingers together briefly as their hands part. “See you later though, okay? Tomorrow?”

He doesn’t move, unwilling to budge until Hux responds. Leia hits the horn again.

“Yes, alright, alright. Bye. Go away before your mother runs me over.”

And that is all it takes to put a warm grin on Ben’s face. “Bye, Hux.”  
  
He forces himself to walk away and not to look back as Ben folds his long body up into Leia’s little car. The sun is beating down on the back of his neck. He still has his little bag of groceries in one hand- had held it like an idiot all through that desperate little play.

 _Christ, he was pathetic, wasn’t he?_  
  
When he reaches his SUV- more because he enjoyed the feeling of driving something big than because he needed the space- he tucks the solitary reusable cloth bag into the empty hatchback, wedging it into a corner so it won’t spill as he drives. He pauses, one hand on the hatch to close it, before fishing something out of the bag.  
  
The car starts with a quiet hum. It was less than a year old and still faintly smelled it. It had been a Christmas present from Devon.

Hux sighs, sitting there in his silent car in the parking lot, but really he had made this decision ages ago. This was just... seeing it through.  
  
Reaching over to the passenger seat, he grabs the pre-paid phone he had bought inside and begins to open it.


End file.
